About Me

When not nosing, tasting, drinking and reading about malt whisky, I own one of Israel's premiere boutique coaching practices, specializing in small businesses and executive teams.
Trained in the law, I was an international law attorney and took part in Israel's peace negotiations with the Palestinians, as well as representing my country at the UN for parts of the negotiations on the implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Later I was appointed to the military bench.
My favorite thing, other than whisky, is teaching.
You can contact me through the social media buttons above or by email: michael(at)maltandoak.com, replacing the (at) with an @.

Statement of Integrity and Guidelines

Malt and Oak is an independent whisky blog, offering my own views, opinions and news from the world of malt whisky.
These are my guidelines:

1. All whisky reviews published are of whiskies I have personally tasted and noted. Guest bloggers only write about their own personal tastings.

2. With the exception of official whisky samples, I accept no consideration whatsoever from any distillery, bottler, distributor, drink company or store for my opinions.

3. I maintain strict impartiality and objectivity in tasting all whiskies, not least when tasting official samples. Any review of official whisky samples sent to me will be so noted in the post.

4. I will accept invitations to tastings, events and official visits, and full disclosure will be made on any tasting notes and articles resulting from these events or visits.

5. Any sample received over 30 ml in volume is shared with fellow whisky bloggers. In any event, no sample larger than 100 ml will be accepted.

6. No advertisements promoting specific brands will be accepted.

7. I will answer any inquiry by my readers as quickly and as fully as possible.

8. Should I give a link purchase the reviewed whisky, it will be given free of any commercial interest. The link given will always point to cheapest selling price I found on the web. No commission is paid, nor any other consideration given, for such link.

9. As of July 2017, I serve as Douglas Laing’s Israel brand ambassasdor. As such, I will obviously not be posting reviews of Douglas Laing products.

Archive For October 30, 2016

It’s that time of year again when the nights are getting longer and we drop back into standard time (or ‘winter clock’ as they call it in Israel) and at long last, temperatures begin to enter a comfortable zone. Sadly it’s nowhere near “fireplace range” here, but we can always imagine it. That of course means…

So they call This whisky a three-year-old. Now, of course, it technically is as 0.04 of it is, indeed, only three years old. Yes, you read that right, four tenths of a percent is three-year-old whisky from Clynelish that was aged by Compass Box itself in their own first fill American Oak casks. In the PR…

This post is a quick followup on our story relating to the absolutely crazy pricing of two 1999 single cask Glen Garioch bottles at last month’s auction. If you didn’t yet, read ‘In Whisky, Is Crazy the New Normal?‘ and then come back here. The short of it is that two Glen Garioch 12 year…

Facebook is full of secret whisky associations, and the most secretive of those, with only 104 of the most discerning whisky nuts, is the WFFA. While I can’t say any more about the group, since one can’t ask to join it, and as two of the three rules the group has were taken out of Chuck Palahniuk’s…